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‘The worst kind. Even Grandad got himself involved.’ When Emily opened her mouth to ask after the old man, Aggie put up a staying hand. ‘It’s all right,’ she assured her. ‘The silly old fool didn’t get hurt, thank God, but it could have been very different.’
‘I’m sorry, Mam.’ Emily knew she should have confided in her, but she hadn’t known herself how serious were her feelings for John. Not until last night, when he took her in his arms and made her feel like the most important person in the whole wide world. ‘I didn’t mean to keep anything from you.’
Brushing aside her apology, Aggie needed to know: ‘How far has it gone with you and John?’
Emily was embarrassed by her mother’s question.
‘Well, child? Answer me. You and John – how far has it gone atween you?’
‘We haven’t done anything wrong, if that’s what you mean!’
‘So, what are your feelings? I need to know.’
Emily blushed bright pink. ‘I think I love him, Mammy.’ She allowed herself a shy little smile. ‘I want to be with him all the time, and when we’re apart, I feel so lonely.’ Pausing to remember how it was whenever she was with John, Emily admitted, ‘I’ve never felt like this before.’
If Aggie had been concerned before, she was even more so now, for she had seen the look in Emily’s eyes, and it gave her a jolt. She had long thought of her daughter as just a lass, but now she knew that the ‘lass’ was fast becoming a woman, with all the complications that went with it. So, she loved young John, did she? Or she thought she did. In her opinion, Emily was still far too young to be getting serious like that, and she said so in no uncertain terms.
While Emily listened with horror, Aggie told her about John and Clem, and how the two of them had fought like tigers. ‘John stood up to him, I’ll give him that. By! He took such a beating … but he kept coming back for more. Look, lass, I want you and John to stop seeing each other,’ she finished. ‘Afore there’s murder done.’
Her words fell on deaf ears, however, because Emily was already out of the door and running like the wind, over the fields towards the rise, to the cottage – and John.
On his way back to the barn, Clem Jackson glanced up to see Emily fleeing across the fields. ‘She’s probably heard how I trounced that young feller-me-lad,’ he grinned. ‘It’s wild she is!’ He chuckled. ‘A wild beauty that needs a bit o’ taming.’ He had long fancied himself as the one to do the ‘taming’. These past months, the girl had seemed to blossom. He spent hours just watching her. It gave him such secret pleasure.
Climbing the ladder to the hayloft, he dumped his bag of tools and began to examine the faulty winding mechanism that winched heavy sacks of potatoes and other items up to the door at the top of the barn. He threw a bit of the chain up to lie out of the way on the crossbeams, and as he did so, a small notebook fell into the hay at his feet.
‘Hello, what have we here?’ Clem said aloud, and picked it up.
The initial pages were merely the innocent jottings of a young girl, telling of her joy in this place, then the dismay after her daddy went away, and the arrival of her mother’s brother, Clem Jackson. She spoke of the way their lives had changed with the death of her granny, and her stillborn brother, and how she prayed every day that Clem would go away and they might find some peace from him.
There were many entries about John, and how they enjoyed each other’s company. I like him a lot, she had written. I think he likes me too. Girlish things. Simple and lovely. But there was little here to fire Jackson’s imagination.
Until he came across the latest entry.
‘By! This is a real eye-opener an’ no mistake!’ he declared, the slaver dripping from his mouth as he read aloud to himself:
‘Last night, John and I held each other. It was so good. He told me he loved me, and I said I felt the same way. Something wonderful happened then. He kissed me, not like a friend, but like a lover. I knew that he wanted more, and so did I. But I was afraid, yet oh so excited. I had such powerful feelings, I couldn’t stop trembling.
He touched my breast … it was a strange and beautiful feeling and I didn’t want him to stop. But he did, and when I asked him why, he said he didn’t know, except we shouldn’t go so far. At least not yet. He didn’t want to spoil me, or hurt me. He thought it was best if we courted for a while, and then we would both see how we felt.
I know he was right. In fact, I felt ashamed at my own part in it, because I must have led him on. It’s just that I do love him so. I know that now. Even if it takes years, it’s John I want.
If Uncle Clem knew we had been so forward, he would go mad. I know he would put all the blame on John, but I was as bad. Nothing happened though. John stopped it before we got carried away, and in a way I’m glad he did.
Clem says John is only after what he can get and that he has no respect for me. But now I know he’s wrong, and besides, I don’t care what my uncle says. He will never stop me from loving John. He makes me feel different – alive – like I’ve never felt before.
When he held me close last night, when he touched me, it made me shiver inside. We’ll do like he says, though. We’ll court for a while, then one day we’ll marry, and I’ll be his wife. John, and his children: that’s all I want, and I’ll be happy for ever.’
Lizzie was the first to see Emily running towards the cottage. ‘The lass is here!’ she called up to John, who was in his bedroom pacing the floor, deep in thought. ‘Best get yersel’ downstairs.’
When a moment later he emerged to see Emily coming down the lane, his first impulse was to go to her, but Lizzie reached out to restrain him.
‘Listen to me, son,’ she persuaded softly. ‘When my brother Petey was lost in the mine disaster, getting on for fifteen year ago now, and your mammy pined herself away soon after, you and me had nobody else but each other. I promised my sister-in-law I’d do my best to raise you as she and Petey would have done. I’ve loved you and cared for you, and you’ve been like my own son, and I thank God for every minute.’
‘I know that,’ he answered, and hugged her. ‘You’ve been like a mother to me, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But this time you can’t help me. I’m a man now, Auntie, and this is something I have to deal with myself.’
Though Emily was opening the garden gate by now, and he was aching to go to her, the urgency in his aunt’s voice made him pause.
‘In all these years I’ve never asked you to do anything against your nature,’ she said. ‘But I’m asking you now, and you have to listen, son … for your own good, and for the good o’ that dear lass.’
Tears filled her eyes. ‘Let things happen gradual between the two of youse. Don’t be too hasty and do something you’ll regret. You’re both so young – you’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Gently gripping her plump shoulders, he said, ‘Trust me. You know I’ll do what’s right by her.’
As he went out to meet Emily, Lizzie watched them fold into each other’s arms, and her heart sank. ‘By! It’s a bad bugger who’s took over Potts End,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know what’ll become of the two of youse, but he’ll not let you have any peace, I’m sure o’ that!’
Her sorry gaze followed the couple as they walked away, towards the fells, where the canal rose and dipped through the lock-gates, and the skylarks sang their cheery song overhead.
It’s a lonely old world for such as me, Lizzie sighed. She recalled her own young love many years ago, and the rush of nostalgia brought a smarting of tears to her pretty green eyes.
Down by the canal, Emily chided John for having gone to see Clem. ‘If you’d told me what you meant to do, I’d never have let you go,’ she said. She was horrified by John’s injuries.
Drawing her down to sit next to him on the bank, John slid his arm about her shoulders. ‘I just wanted for you and me to have our courtship put out in the open,’ he explained. ‘I didn’t want us hiding round corners and being afraid at every footstep.’
She looked up, an appreciative smile on her face. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but you can’t reason with a man like that.’
He studied her now; those intense nutmeg-brown eyes and that innocent smile. Today, her hair was free from its plaits and tumbled silkily onto her shoulders. His heart turned somersaults. ‘Emily?’
She looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
Sitting round she looked him full in the face. ‘You’d best tell me then.’
Shifting uncomfortably he began, ‘Do you want us to get married one day?’
Her eyes opened with astonishment. ‘You know I do!’
‘That’s what I want too, sweetheart.’ Cupping her pretty face in the palms of his hands he studied her every feature. ‘Look, I’ve been thinking – about you and me, and our future. When we do get married, I want us to have the best wedding, one we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.’
‘That’s not important.’ Putting her finger to his poor split lips, she told him, ‘All I want is to be your wife. All the fancy trimmings won’t make any difference.’
‘I know that. But there are other things that do matter. I need to make you a home, and give you nice things, and later when we have children, we won’t want them to go without. You know what I’m saying, don’t you, sweetheart?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She shook her head, the beginnings of doubt creeping into her heart.
‘The truth is,’ he went on, ‘I have no savings, and precious few prospects.’
‘No! You have your work – every wagon round these parts has been either repaired by you, or built from scratch. You’re well respected hereabouts. Folk always call on you whenever they need a roof fixed, or other jobs done. There’s all sorts you turn your hand to.’
‘I won’t deny that, but it still makes me just a handyman. That won’t build us a house, or provide enough to give our children the best of everything.’
Emily would have none of it. ‘We’ll manage,’ she protested. ‘When the time comes, we’ll have a bit put by. We’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
Realising he was in danger of losing the argument, and putting her in more danger than she could ever imagine, he said firmly, ‘I’ve made a decision.’
She didn’t answer, for somewhere deep inside she feared what he was about to say. ‘You’re going away, aren’t you?’ Her heart sank like a dead weight inside her.
He nodded. ‘There’s a big world out there, and a chance for me to make something of myself. I won’t be away too long – a year or two, that’s all. We’re young enough to spare that time, and when I come back, I’ll have made enough money to get us everything you deserve.’ He paused; the pain in her eyes as she looked at him was strangling his heart. In a choked voice, he promised her he would come back, and when he did, it would be to make her his wife.
‘But I don’t need a big wedding,’ she said tearfully. ‘I only need you.’
‘Do you want rid of your uncle?’
Wiping her eyes she shook her head. ‘Him! He’ll never go,’ she said bitterly.
Her answer gave an edge to his argument. ‘I’ll make him go!’ he promised. ‘When I’ve got enough money to clear your mammy’s debts, I’ll be back, and we’ll be rid of him once and for all.’
She smiled through her tears. ‘Would you do that for us?’
‘You know I would.’
She thought how wonderful it would be if her uncle was gone, and for a brief moment her heart was lifted by his promise. But then she imagined what her life would be like without John, and it seemed unbearable. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded.
Common-sense crumbled when, suddenly, he was filled with a compulsion to take her away. ‘Come with me, Emily!’
Thrilled, she drew away from him, her eyes alight with excitement. ‘Yes!’ She laughed out loud. ‘Oh yes, John. Take me with you and I’ll get work. I’ll help you make your fortune!’ Like John, she had momentarily forgotten harsh reality.
In the heat of the moment, John wondered why he had not thought of it before. The solution was staring him in the face! Of course! If he couldn’t keep Jackson away from Emily, the next thing was to remove her out of harm’s way.
Besides, the idea of himself and Emily travelling life’s highway to make their fortune was wonderful. Later, they would come back and free her mammy and grandad from Jackson’s clutches. Potts End Farm would be returned to them, and life would be as it was before Clem came to taint it.
When, in that instant, common-sense prevailed and realisation dawned, a painful silence fell between them. It was broken by Emily’s quiet voice. ‘I can’t go with you.’ She raised her tearful gaze. ‘I have to stay and help Mammy. She could never manage on her own. Then there’s Grandad.’ She made a gesture of helplessness. ‘They need me.’
He nodded. ‘I know. I’m sorry, Emily. I wasn’t thinking.’ He held her hand and said reflectively, ‘Maybe Lizzie was right.’
‘What do you mean?’
He recalled his conversation with his aunt. ‘She said we were too young, and I’ve just proved her right.’ He was mortified. ‘The idea of you coming with me just took away my thinking.’
‘Don’t go, John,’ she murmured. ‘Please! Don’t go.’
‘I have to.’ Her pain was his.
Taking her by the arms, he drew her up, and for a time they stood together, he with his arms about her, and Emily nestled against him. Each could hear the other’s heart beating, as if they shared just one between them. They didn’t speak. All that needed saying had already been said.
With a suddenness that startled him, she wrenched away. ‘If you go, I’ll hate you!’ she cried, and when he reached out to console her, she turned and ran.
With his emotions torn in so many ways, all he could do was let her go. That dearly loved, familiar figure, running like the very wind, her hair flying in the breeze, and her feet bare as the day she was born. This was how he would remember her. This was the image he would carry with him, until he came back to claim her, one day when he had the means to free that troubled family.
Lowering his gaze for a moment, he wished with all his being that it could have been different. ‘I have to go,’ he said helplessly. ‘He gave me no choice.’
Sobbing uncontrollably, Emily fled to the barn and up the ladder to that secret place where she often came to write her deepest thoughts into her little book. Seeking comfort, she reached for her locket – and found it gone. Dear Lord! Horrified, Emily recalled her two wild journeys across the fields – the first in happy expectation of a rendezvous, the second a panicked dash to her lover’s aid. The locket must have come adrift from its chain then, and be lost on the farm or in Potts End Lane. She’d never find it again.
Sinking to her knees, her face in her hands, she gave vent to her grief.
She didn’t hear the soft crunch of footsteps as the man stepped towards her across the strewn hay. Nor was she aware that he stood for a full minute staring down on her, licking his lips and remembering what he had read in that book of hers. And now she was here, and his need of her was like a red-hot iron in his gut.
When in a minute he was on her, she fell backwards, helpless and terrified as he tore at her clothes. The instinct for survival gave her the will to fight, but she was no match for his bull-like strength.
‘For God’s sake, Uncle Clem – leave me be!’
But he didn’t leave her.
Instead, he slid his hand over her mouth to stop her screams. ‘We can’t ’ave yer mammy come a-running now, can we, eh?’ he panted.
In the shocking minutes that followed, he took her innocence, and coveted every part of her. And try as she could, she was helpless to stop him.
When it was over, and she was slumped to the floor, degraded and broken, he pointed down at her as he buttoned up his flies. ‘One word o’ this to anybody – anybody, mind – and I’ll set fire to the house … with all three of you buggers inside.’ He laughed, a dark, evil sound that sent ripples of terror through her every nerve-ending. ‘One dark night when yer think yer all safe, that’s when I’ll come a-prowling. Yer know I’d do it an’ all, don’t yer, eh?’ When she didn’t answer, he gave her a kick. ‘DON’T YER?’
Nodding, she kept her gaze to the wall.
‘There’s a good lass.’ He grinned with pleasure and cast one more lingering look at her naked thighs, smeared with a mixture of her blood and his seed.
Quickly now, he scurried to the ladder and began his descent. ‘Yer a woman now,’ he gloated. ‘What’s more, it took a man to mek yer blossom! Not some young whippersnapper who doesn’t know what day it is!’ He grinned and called up, ‘Pretend it were him, if yer like. That don’t bother me none. In fact, it might suit me all the way.’
A moment later he was gone, and she was alone; her young life ruined, and her hopes for the future torn apart.
Some short distance away, John paused to look back on his journey down Potts End Lane and out of Emily’s life. ‘I’ll keep my promise,’ he vowed, his gaze trained on the farmhouse where Emily lived. ‘However long it takes, I’ll be back, my love. And nothing will ever part us again.’
Chapter 4
EMILY WAS AT the kitchen window, showing her daughter the newly-fallen layer of snow. ‘It’s Christmas Day tomorrow,’ she told the bairn. ‘Last year it rained all day, but look there!’ Excitedly she held the infant higher so she could see. ‘Your very first white Christmas!’ Last year had been wet and bitter, with never a sign of snow.
Made curious by the delicate manner in which the robin tripped across the snow’s surface to leave its tiny prints there, Emily did not notice the laden milk-cart approaching.
But now, as the infant began squealing and struggling to get out of her arms, Emily looked up. ‘What’s wrong, eh?’ Following the direction of little Cathleen’s gaze, she saw him over the hedge: Danny Williams, the local milkman, his familiar head and shoulders bobbing up and down with the movement of the cart-horse as it plodded its way through the snow. ‘It’s Danny!’ Emily laughed out loud. ‘You saw him coming down the lane – that’s why you’re so excited!’
At that very minute the mantelpiece clock struck eight. ‘Right on time,’ she said. ‘I should have known.’
Having recently returned from three years away fighting in the Transvaal, Danny had left the Army to take over the milk-round from his retired widower father. The Williamses were a popular family hereabouts, and when Danny had collected milk from neighbouring farms, he always dropped in for a cuppa at Potts End. He and the horse both enjoyed the break. Dedicated and reliable, he was never known to be late.
‘Hmh!’ Emily smiled into her daughter’s eyes. ‘I do believe you’d rather see Danny than have a white Christmas.’ Nuzzling the infant’s mop of dark hair, she wasn’t surprised to see the joy in those bright blue eyes as they caught sight of Danny in his lofty seat. ‘Always pleased to see him, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ she asked, and the child’s spontaneous bubble of laughter was enough of an answer.
Over this past year, since Danny Williams had returned from South Africa, he and Emily’s child Cathleen had struck up a warm friendship. At first, Emily had been wary, but Danny’s natural humour and honest nature soon allayed her fears and won her over.
‘You’d best get down, while I put the kettle on.’ Lowering the child to the floor, she turned towards the range. ‘He’ll be wanting his cup of tea.’
‘Aye, an’ he’ll be wanting a muffin too, I’ll be bound.’ That was Aggie, having entered the kitchen from the adjoining room. ‘You see to the child,’ she suggested, ‘while I mek us all a brew.’
Tugging at her skirts, little Cathleen let her mammy know she wanted to go outside. ‘I can’t let you go out just yet,’ Emily chided. ‘We don’t want you squashed under the wheels of the cart now, do we, eh?’ The very thought sent shivers of horror through her.
Holding the child close, Emily took a moment to observe her. Cathleen was a year and nine months old now, and every minute spent with her was pure joy. It seemed astonishing to her that this darling little girl, with her laughing blue eyes and shock of dark hair, had been conceived out of fear and hatred.
At first, after a hard and painful birth, it had been impossible for Emily to accept her. For weeks afterwards, Emily had turned her back on the newborn, leaving Aggie to nurse, bath and cuddle the child. And that dear woman never complained. ‘You’ll tek to the bairn when you’re good and ready,’ she declared. ‘You see if you don’t!’
She was right because, little by little, Emily had come to realise that the child, like herself, carried no blame for what had happened. The miracle to Emily was that neither in physical appearance or nature, did Cathleen show any trait of the man who had forced himself on her mother.
Since that dreadful day, and for some reason known only to himself, Clem Jackson had kept his distance. That much at least Emily was grateful for. But if she had hated him before, she now loathed him with a vengeance.
There had been many times during the days and months following the rape when she had yearned for someone to confide in: her mother, her grandfather maybe. Even John, if he’d been here. Deep down though, she knew she could never tell anyone. Clem had threatened all manner of retribution if she so much as mentioned his name in the same breath as the child. And so, fearful of the consequences for her family, Emily had suffered the worst ordeal of her young life, without recourse to the comfort of being able to tell someone the truth of what had really happened.
At the pubs where he drank with his cronies, in his evil way, Clem had spread the word that John Hanley was the one who had got his niece pregnant, and soon it was common knowledge. Emily for her part neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead she kept her own counsel. The time would come when the truth could be told, she promised herself. When John came home, they would put the record straight together. That was what she believed, with all her heart. And yet, after two years and more without word or sight of him, she had no choice but to believe that John had deserted her.
Lizzie Hanley had taken umbrage at the rumours and no longer had any dealings with Potts End. Too proud to beg for news of John, Emily threw herself into her work, and made the child and her family her life.
The hatred and fear of Clem Jackson were always alive in her. But she was ever thankful that there was no sign of his character in little Cathleen; only a strong, brave heart filled with love and the joy of living, and a natural kindness that endeared the tiny girl to all who met her.
Inevitably, Emily grew to love and adore her – as did her grandad and Aggie, who quite naturally believed the child to be John Hanley’s. Never in her wildest nightmares did Aggie suspect that Cathleen’s father was her own brother, Clem. Since the tragic stillbirth of her son, and the disappearance of her husband, Aggie now took life as it came, and refused to overreact to something as natural as pregnancy, within or without a marriage ceremony. Children were gifts from God, to be cherished – that was her view, and she cared nothing for the opinion of others.
‘Danny!’ Cathleen’s small voice swept away Emily’s troublesome thoughts.
‘All right, sweetheart.’ Clutching the child to her, Emily looked out to return Danny’s friendly wave.
The two of them followed his progress up the lane. Because of the recent snowfall, the wheels made no sound on the ground, though the dozen or so milk-churns on the cart rattled and clanged as the horse picked his docile way towards the gate.
When at last both horse and cart came to rest, that great old cob straightaway began pawing the ground with his hoof. The smell of hay from the back made his stomach rumble. ‘Behave yourself now!’ Danny leaped down, his boots skidding in the soft snow. ‘Hang on, me ol’ darlin’,’ he told the horse. ‘You’ll get your breakfast, never fear.’